Adachi to Shimamura - Volume SS1 - Chapter 27

A Kingdom for Two

 “FIRST THINGS FIRST: the housework. Assign each task, or take turns?”

“Hmm…” 

Gazing through the hole of the mostly untouched donut in front of me, I contemplated the question Shimamura had posed. Neither of us had a set workload, so some days were busy and some weren’t. If we agreed to take turns, and a chore landed on one of us while her schedule was especially hectic, it seemed unlikely to get done at all. 

“What if…whoever’s less busy picks up the other’s slack, or something?”

“Sounds like an advanced strategy.” She took a bite of her donut, smiling at its sweetness as she chewed. 

In front of me was a notebook in which we tracked all the myriad decisions we needed to make, plus a colorful lamp, our drinks, and Shimamura’s sweet smile—a peaceful scene, all in all. If my foremost desires manifested in reality, I suspected it’d probably look something like this. 

Next to Shimamura was a to-go bag with treats to take home, as per usual. At times, that tendency felt like the biggest difference between the two of us. The only thing next to me was an origami crane that she’d folded and tossed my way. 

We sat at a table inside the train-station donut shop, but if you asked me, this discussion was far sweeter than any dessert. After all, we’d reached the point in our lives (and relationship) when we needed to outline our future together. That was a very serious topic, to be sure, yet it made my heart soar at the same time.

Looking back, my teenage years—so full of joy and tears and panic and every other emotion at its most extreme—now felt like a distant dream. But the agony of those sleepless nights, accidental tongue bites, and similarly aching organs had surely paved my way this far…right? 

Either way, we’d only just decided to move in together. There were more tasks ahead of us than I could count on both hands. Moving was a major venture in terms of time and effort, and it was hard to imagine how I’d ever pack everything up. 

“Once we’ve both got jobs, we can narrow down where to look for a place.”

“Right.” 

With each decision we made, Shimamura wrote a new bullet point in the notebook. I wasn’t sure we’d even need those notes, but at the very least, it felt important to put all our dreams on the table. It was fun too. 

“We only need one bedroom, right?”

That caught me off guard. “Huh? Y-yeah, of course.” 

Come to think of it, once we moved in together, we’d share the same bed every night… If I hadn’t been in public at that moment, the mental image would’ve had me writhing on the floor. On top of that, we’d soon share all life’s more trivial aspects too. I was going to discover so much of Shimamura. 

That filled me not with trepidation, but a swirl of excitement. To that day, I had yet to find anything I hadn’t liked about her—truly, not a single thing. Shimamura was just so beautiful. She satisfied my heart’s desire for perfection, because to me, she was perfect. That feeling of fulfillment superseded all else. 

For as long as I could remember, I’d struggled to identify things I liked; I just never really grew attached to anything. Then Shimamura came along, and in the blink of an eye, she captivated me. Just like that, I had finally found something to love. And that moment in high school had quite possibly altered the course of my life forever. 

“You going to eat that?” Her eyes drifted to the untouched French cruller in my hands. 

Donuts were no exception to my indifference; while they tasted good, I never felt the need to seek them out. Maybe some part of me was broken inside. Regardless, Shimamura was kind enough to accept me just the way I was. Sometimes, when I stopped to think about that long enough, it brought me to tears. 

Tentatively, I offered her the cruller. “Um…say ‘ahhh’?” 

“Awww, thank you!” Without the slightest hint of shyness, she leaned forward and took a bite. She made it look so easy too. If I tried the same thing, I’d end up pulling my neck. “Isn’t sugar just the greatest?”

“Uh…yeah.” 

She chewed with an expression of pure bliss on her face, then directed that same look of sheer sugary ecstasy at me, and I felt diabetes set in. 

To me, living together would be about more than sharing a physical space—Shimamura would now be a permanent resident in my heart. She was everything to me, and in turn, I wanted to be more to her. I wanted to fill her lungs until she could barely breathe without me.

As long as she was by my side, I’d happily have journeyed to the ends of the Earth. On the other hand, I’d have nowhere to go without her, so if I lost her, I’d search for her. I would comb the very heavens—the farthest reaches of the universe—for however long it took until I found her again. 

Of course, I had no intention of allowing that to happen in the first place, so I kept charging forward at full speed.

With Shimamura, I would start over again and again—a constant cycle of learning, growing, starting, and moving ahead. And of course, she would be at the center of all that. When it came down to it, there was nothing in life I valued aside from her. All the world’s walls, ceilings, and floors were merely extensions of her being. Eventually I’d come to accept that I was incapable of living outside her framework, and since then, I could proudly say that I had unquestionably found true happiness. 

“I wish this moment could last forever,” I mused aloud.

Shimamura set down her pen, pausing briefly to examine the faint red imprint it left behind on her hand. “Yeah… I really relate to that.” 

We’d reached a stage where my wild howls of affection were no longer unanswered. The corners of my lips quivered. Everything I wanted to say—everything I wanted Shimamura to hear—flashed through my mind like a stream of light… Reaching out mentally, I caught each little mote on my palm, one at a time.

When I first told her I wanted to live together, Shimamura thought for a moment, then agreed with a grin: “Sure, that works.” Because of her, not even the most sleepless of nights could make me miserable; the memory of her kind words and soft smile comforted me.

A place—a castle—a kingdom, just for me and Shimamura. That was something I’d wanted since we were teenagers cooped up in the gym loft. In that sense, perhaps I would never truly change. Perhaps I was immutable. If so, I could only hope the same was true of my heart…because the crane we’d built from our dreams was preparing to take flight.